The simple truth about Luke Batty's murder masks complicated causes
|
Version 0 of 1. Coroner Ian Gray spoke for more than an hour. At the very end he noted that Rosie Batty had told the inquest into her 11-year-old son’s death that “nobody is to blame for Luke’s death”. Related: Luke Batty inquest: coroner lays blame for death solely on boy's father “I respectfully disagree,” said Gray. “The evidence is that Mr Anderson and Mr Anderson alone was responsible for Luke’s death whether he was suffering a mental illness or not”. This may be the horrible, simple truth about the death of Luke Batty, murdered by his father Greg Anderson at a suburban sporting ground in outer Melbourne early last year. Luke was hit over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed by a man who everyone believed loved his son and would not hurt him. The horror of Luke’s murder, and his mother Rosie’s extraordinary and public response to it, did more than anything to force a once hidden issue into the open and to force politicians to seriously respond. Gray’s 111-page findings were a reminder that there would be no simple solutions to family violence. He declined to blame any individual apart from Anderson, nor any institution for what happened to an unusually articulate boy, who loved cricket and football and whose favourite colour was yellow. He acknowledged that there had been mistakes and missed opportunities and he made 29 recommendations to tighten processes and hold perpetrators to account. He conceded, too, that it was tempting to blame someone in the family violence, police and child protection system for the death of Luke, given that Anderson had such a long history of violence. “But Luke’s death was not reasonably foreseeable by any entity or person, including Ms Batty,” Gray said. “No one person or agency could have reasonably been expected to foresee that Mr Anderson would be that rare perpetrator, and Luke the rare victim, of a violent filicide.” Rosie Batty, named Australian of the year for 2015 because of her advocacy on family violence, said that this was a “monumental day” and it did bring a degree of closure for her. The remarkable grace and strength she showed at the time of Luke’s death was again evidence on Monday. She sought no scapegoats for the death of her only child. “I’m really pleased with Judge Gray’s findings,” she said. “I think he’s done what I always set out to do, which is to highlight systemic failings but not apportion personal blame. People do the best they can with their training, with the information they have available, with the resources they have.” Related: Luke Batty: killed by a father no one truly knew It was an enormously generous assessment. Not that she, or Gray, let everyone off the hook. Gray went through in detail everything that had gone wrong, each piece of the puzzle not entered into computer systems quickly, or not shared between agencies. He said there had been big improvements in the response to family violence in recent years, but more was needed. What was most critical was that the perpetrator of violence needed to be made more accountable. He noted that little was known about Greg Anderson, 54, unemployed, often homeless and likely to have suffered a mental illness. Luke told social workers at one point that his father could be a nice man and then an angry one. Through it all, Anderson was never quite caught by the systems in place, despite Rosie Batty’s decade-long interactions with those systems. At the time of Luke’s death, Anderson was facing 11 criminal charges, and was subject to four unexecuted arrest warrants. “The fact is that the perpetrator ultimately controls the risk of family violence,” Gray said. “This case has dramatically highlighted the need for an emphasis on perpetrator accountability.” “It is clear that every opportunity for engagement needs to be taken ... any chance to counsel, treat, modify or change behaviour should be taken. It is a central lesson from this case.” For instance, Anderson often heard voices and was obsessive about religion. He was likely to have suffered a delusional disorder, a mental illness that can be treated. But Anderson was never diagnosed as having a mental illness. There was no judicial power to mandate Anderson to be assessed by a forensic psychiatrist before being granted access to Luke. There were too many delays in the judicial system. May 2012 charges of unlawful assault against Rosie Batty had not been heard at the time of Luke’s death almost a year later. Anderson was served with an intervention order in relation to his allegedly threatening a man with a knife, but the outstanding arrest warrants were not executed at the time. The department of human services closed Luke’s file without convening a meeting of all people involved in his case to assess the risk to the boy. Anderson was able to play a fragmented system. “I agree with Ms Batty that there was an absence of effective information sharing between services and there was no comprehensive family violence risk assessment undertaken and shared.” The support Rosie received was fragmented and lacked continuity. “Her evidence was that she felt alone.” Gray singled out Rosie Batty as “impressive, articulate and credible, a loving mother constantly assessing the risk to Luke.” Related: Rosie Batty: we've only just begun to open our eyes to family violence Despite years of suffering physical and emotional violence, Batty did everything she could to ensure Luke could see his father. Luke loved Anderson and Batty did not believe Greg Anderson would hurt his son. “Tragically Ms Batty has paid a terrible price for her best efforts for Luke to maintain a relationship with his father,” Gray said. In her response, Batty noted Gray’s personal words for her at the end of his findings. Gray said Luke’s death had not been in vain. “It has clearly driven your family violence work and I congratulate you on that work.” Batty also believes Luke’s death has not been in vain. That was what she wanted all along, she said. “That’s what I’ve been working for.” |